By Kate Brazier, Managing Director, The Romans
Global campaigns should be the most powerful work a brand produces. They have the biggest budgets, the widest reach, and the most opportunity to shape perception at scale. Yet somehow, they’re often the most forgettable.
The problem isn’t ambition. It’s architecture. Too many global campaigns are built to survive approval processes, not the real world. With every additional market, stakeholder and leadership layer, something gets diluted. Edges are softened. Cultural specificity disappears. The interesting bits get quietly removed in favour of something everyone can agree on, and no one remembers. “Global” has become a polite shorthand for “safe.”
The most common myth is that scale equals newsworthiness. Journalists don’t care how many markets you’re in; they care whether you’re saying something interesting, new, or culturally relevant. Ideally, all three.
The global campaigns that do cut through start with a tension, provocation or insight that is truly worth talking about. If no one is talking about it in a dark corner of Reddit or on TikTok, or you wouldn’t want to read about it in the paper, it is probably because no one cares. We also don’t move forward unless it’s passed the “do you talk about this with your mates on WhatsApp?” test.
The strongest global work from brands is rooted in a clear point of view, with a simple call to action. It stands for something specific, rather than trying to reflect everything back to everyone. This often means that great brand storytelling can and should divide opinion. When a campaign is designed to be liked by everyone, it rarely resonates deeply with anyone. The brands that win globally are confident enough to accept there may be disagreement, internally and externally. We are not afraid of an idea that we know will ruffle feathers.
In fact, people often say “I knew that was you guys,” which we take as the highest compliment.
That said, even the best concepts can get lost in what we love to call ‘localisation’. Often treated merely as translation or swapping in a local quote or stats, every market gets the same toolkit, the same assets and unsurprisingly, the same muted results.
The best global campaigns instead offer a clear idea, tone of voice and intent, but then crucially trust local teams to bring cultural intelligence to the execution. This approach does introduce risk, but good PR lives in the real world, where journalists ask awkward questions, audiences remix messages and things don’t always land exactly as planned.
Running global campaigns that aren’t boring requires a total mindset shift: less focus on what is easy to sign off and more commitment to meaningful impact.
